More than 80% of hotel revenue is generated by credit card usage each year, so monitoring credit card transaction fees and charges should be a priority for hotel management.
Independent Merchant Group (IMG) reviewed the merchant services statements of two leading hotels and found:
- unauthorized increases in transaction fees;
- processing rates and fees that were above-average for the hotel industry;
- incomplete and confusing terms in the statements.
IMG’s success in auditing the statements and restructuring the credit card processing agreements saved both hotels thousands of dollars; the company continues to monitor the statements to guard against fee changes.
This case study was presented to several hotel industry publications. Three articles on the topic of credit card processing fees generated more than 800 calls from hotel industry professionals. They were eager for IMG to review their credit card processing statements and potentially locate similar savings for them.
If IMG had purchased a list of hotel CFOs and contacted these executives by email and phone, would the company have received a similarly high volume of interest?
A leading broadcasting industry magazine published an article on its website. Perhaps advertisers, who are often skittish that adverse publicity might affect them also, contacted the network to voice their displeasure with this news.
When a contributor to The TODAY Show mentioned at a social event that an upcoming segment would focus on trends combining gardens and technology, I suggested a website as an example. 
Presidential candidate John McCain announced on the morning of June 23, 2008 that he would create a national competition to promote research on alternative automobile batteries.
Dialogues, a customized newsletter that financial advisors of Smith Barney ordered for their clients, featured four articles on diverse personal financial planning topics. I drafted